Jason Luthor - Floor 21

So, we never did. I never stepped foot over there until I was part of a scavenging team. Thing about the west wing is that it’s not heavily inhabited. There are a few families and people over there, don’t get me wrong, but a lot of those doors are red lights. Nobody living there. That’s creepy enough, but the worst part is wandering around and just noticing the thickness of the Creep. Even by Floor 16 standards, it’s pretty dense, so the infestation in the rooms must be out of control. It’s not just the Creep alone, though, that’s disturbing. What’s truly disturbing is the Security armor trapped inside of it. I’ve said that you find it strewn along the halls, but it’s not as if it’s just casually lying around on the ground. It’s actually trapped in the Creep itself.

The locals say it’s from the victims that Sally claimed when she tried to force her way up into the upper levels. Obviously Security has a tight grip on any threats to the upper floors, but it’s apparent, from all the abandoned weapons and equipment, that there were some significant Security losses on Floor 16 at some point. The fact that nobody from Cleanup came afterward indicates that Authority felt they’d disturb or agitate the situation further by sending in more people. Even these days, we try to avoid the west wing. Still, every once in a while, I go through and look. It’s really more for people that live on that floor. It gives them some peace of mind.

Well, you can imagine that by the time we’ve finished our parades upstairs, then gone through checkpoints, and finally finished doing extended patrols, that we’ve already burned a lot of time. You’re right. This process is something that Authority might want to address later, but as for now, it takes nearly the entire day just to make our way down to Floor 21.

My personal recommendation is that Authority make a more consistent effort of using Security on the lower levels to assure the people living there that we’re actually protecting them. That they have no reason to fear the Creep.

Of course, I wonder if, by Floor 21, any of that would make a difference.

A description of the current condition of Floor 21 follows.

As Authority is well aware, Floor 21 has been the first line of defense against the Creep for as long as we can remember now. There are, of course, rumors that at one time we lived lower in the tower. However, neither I nor my team have found any proof of this on any of our excursions. The items we’ve found seem to have belonged to people that lived before the Before. Also, from a practical perspective, it seems as if it would be impossible to live any farther below due to the incredibly deteriorated nature of the deep lower floors.

The first time I set foot on Floor 21, I was eighteen. I’d volunteered for the Scavengers and was quickly accepted. I say quickly because some people are only conditionally accepted due to their mental state. Those that are prone to panic or fear are first put through more extensive training sessions to see if they can master their emotions. As Authority is well aware, I never needed this. Call it whatever you will. Perhaps I lack a healthy sense of fear or self-preservation. Whatever you want to call it, I don’t panic when things go sour, and I don’t lose my cool.

That stated, even I was slightly unnerved the first time I left for the Scavenging.

One of the first things I noticed, and it is still true today, is the rustlike haze that hangs in the hallways. Some say that trace elements of the Creep disperse into the air, causing the haze. Using the same logic, we assume that the Creep causes hallucinations because it hangs so heavy in the environment. If nothing else, the years have proved that the Creep has debilitating mental effects on human beings, due to its inherent properties.

Whether that’s true or not is for Science and Authority to determine. I simply know that the already rust and concrete walls of the Tower are that much more dim on Floor 21. This is the most despised rotation for all of Security, and you can see it in their posture at the door. Even though they have their gas masks on at all times, they’re rigid, yet constantly shifting around to see if anything is approaching. You’ll notice them take an occasional look into the stairwell to see if the Creep is coming up. It never is, but that fact doesn’t ever help to relax them. Or anyone, really.

The paranoia and fear are thick, and the shadow people sightings become a daily occurrence. The bases of the walls are lined with slimy piles of what looks like muscle pushing up from the lower floors, an infestation that has to be battled against on an almost weekly basis through the use of superheated rods. Of course, you don’t want to be using flamethrowers on open walls and risking the infrastructure of the building, at least not if you don’t have to, so one of the central jobs of people living on these lowest levels is to patrol the hallways and use those red-hot rods to force back the Creep. When it recedes, so does the sticky fluid it produces, but inevitably both return. It’s just a matter of when.

People living on these floors despise their jobs, and it is no secret that they often trade their rotations with neighbors. This does come at quite a high price, though. Given the lack of supplies provided to the lowest levels, a black market of sorts has sprung up as people barter among themselves for different goods. Sometimes a man is so desperate to stay away from the abandoned halls of Floor 21 that he’ll sell an entire week’s worth of food.

It is a problem, one Authority has not addressed either by finding permanent solutions to the infestation or by reinforcing the area with Security. Even the Morale officers rarely come below Floor 17.

To be frank, the infestation at these levels is simply too high for a representative from Morale that is adjusted to the upper levels. Without the proper training, they panic and run. It is a known fact that we have lost such men into the depths of Floor 21 when these untrained men or women have lost control of their emotions and, in a blind panic, vanished into the maze that is the Tower. Where they go is impossible to determine due to the failure of surveillance equipment on these levels, a failure that goes back before my lifetime.

Those that do take on the duties of fighting back the Creep are expected to wander deep into every wing. They burn away any overgrowth in the halls or excreting from doorways, but they’re also expected to monitor growth in the old elevator shafts as well as various nooks and hiding spots of the Tower. It is, of course, a massive building, and so a thorough patrol of every inch of the halls is impossible. When an overgrowth goes unmonitored for too long, it causes a chain reaction upward through the higher levels, leading to a lockdown situation. Fortunately we haven’t experienced this much since the emergency situation last year, when we lost multiple Security agents in the Stockholm Incident and engaged the Creep in a long battle throughout the night.

I’m sure I don’t have to remind anyone in Authority about the Stockholm Incident, so I’ll continue.

My team uses the same room each time we spend the night on Floor 21. As I sit here on the ground, I can’t help but laugh. Due to constant vigilance, there is no sign of infestation where we stay. There is neither muscle nor skin growth, no signs of the fluid, and yet it takes daily scrubbing simply to keep this one room clean. It is no wonder we are unable to make significant pushback against the Creep if it takes this much effort just to keep it out of one room.

At any rate, the men are relaxed. They’ve become as used to this as possible, and a few are playing cards. We’ve got one young man, named Mike, looking forward to this being his last expedition before he puts in for his four-year reserve term. He’s a good person that’s always kept a calm head. It’ll be a shame seeing him rotate out of the team, but I hope he finds a real solid job on his floor. Guys like him deserve it. I know he’s said before that he has a few friends up there. At least once he’s mentioned a girl, Jackie, that he says is too young for him, but that he’s at least decent friends with. I doubt he’s completely honest about her being too young for him, but stuff like that keeps me laughing. Like I said, this is why Authority puts up with me, right? Because I can laugh in the face of conditions even when I’m about to plunge into the Deep Creep.